Posted on 11/21/2019 6:02:39 PM PST by DoodleBob
THE WHO bandmembers Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey share their detailed personal accounts of what happened the night of December 3, 1979, when 11 young people were killed outside a coliseum before their concert started. In the WCPO documentary "The Who: The Night That Changed Rock", they talk about how this single event forever changed rock and the lives of so many people. While they didn't know about the deaths until after the concertended, they have lived with the pain of the losses for 40 years.
"You know, I'm still traumatized by it," says Townshend. "It's a weird thing to have in your autobiography that, you know, 11 kids died at one of your concerts. It's a strange, disturbing heavy load to carry."
"That dreadful night of the third of December became one of the worst dreams I've had in my life," recounts Daltrey.
The band's longtime manager, Bill Curbishley, witnessed the deaths and made the call to let the band play. "Despite everything," says Curbishley, "I still feel inadequate. I don't know about the guys, but for me, I left a little bit of my soul in Cincinnati."
(Excerpt) Read more at blabbermouth.net ...
The video and audio of “The Station” fire is haunting. What a horrible and preventable way to die. To cover the walls with highly flammable materials and then blow fire on it blows my mind. Wow.
Don’t know how much ended up in the public domain but we have heard everything recorded that night in CE’s over the years.
And has been voting RAT ever since!
Are you kidding? I wouldn’t go to a concert today if provided a complementary fully stocked stretch limo, free tickets etc...That garbage is far behind me and left a lingering bad in my mouth. And if ya think what happened in the 60s regarding rock concerts, hippies and the drugs is the same as today, I can’t help you.
Go outside, put away the phone, go to your favorite local club, pay $10, and watch 5 bands of kids play their hearts out. Yea, three of the bands will be just ok, one will suck more than Springsteen, but there will be one band that renews your faith in modern rock. You should buy their CD and their tshirts, because the free market doesn't work on Facebook likes.
A big part of the problem is that terrestrial radio is driven by playlists, XM's playlists are super research-driven (except for some channels like Underground Garage). But there are countless online radio channels and YouTube channels with new, good, fresh music.
My job, as an "old guy," is to get off my azz and support music. Otherwise, we will have Taylor Swift-type entertainers from here on out.
I spanned a 1974 Grateful Dead experience to a big phish concert a couple of years ago. I think I might have a firmer grip on the situation.
But, if it will make you sleep better, you can feel that hippie love feats are better than all out orgies that I’ve witnessed.
Not really into either band, so I won’t comment on the music. I am kind of into classical stuff anyway. They only drink wine.
Altamont was 10 years before that (almost to the day, December 6th 1969)
Those two concerts led to a lot of the restrictive gates and rules at concert venues for bigger bands.
Woodstock changed rock forever because instead of concert halls and 2 performances a night it went to sports arenas and bigger shows.
They realized just how big a crowd could be amassed for rock concerts and stadium corporate rock was born.
Bill Graham and Jimi Hendrix closed the 60s.
At the Fillmore (East?) Jimi played a New Year’s Eve show and a lengthy version of Auld Ange Syne.
Bill Graham announces it is a new year, a whole new decade.
And the 60s were gone.
Those were 2 icons of the 2nd half of the 60s so that was a definitive statement.
Lemmings. What a great concert.
Masses of young people gathered at a rock concert to off themselves as John Belushi MCs and Megadeath close out the show (1973):
Trigger warning for modernist viewers. This would be politically incorrect today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuBhwEgi8qU
I was also going to mention that they featured it on WKRP In Cincinnati. That show ended on a very somber note.
Mark
Ah. the day Glenn Miller disappeared. Sad day indeed....
The crowd itself was out of control at Altamont as well.
Well to be sure, Prince and Tom Petty both overdosed recently and several other lead singers have committed suicide (Stone Temple Pilots and Soundgarden).
( Snicker!) Just a little Seventies humor.
What concert crowd isnt out of control? That’s what competent security is for.
THe bad acid at Altamont was more than just a rumor. And the crowd was “off” throughout the grounds, not just at the stage where the Hells Angels stood.
And the same guy behind the poor planning at Woodstock that made it a “free show” was involved here and again at Woodstock 99. And there was arson at the 1969 Woodstock as well (the crowd burned down the burger guy’s booth at the original Woodstock).
Attended this AC/DC concert in Salt Lake City 1991. I normally would have been standing toward the front of the floor but my friend had a bum leg so we were up in the stands unaware of what was going on on the floor. Lawsuits followed and, not surprisingly, the band hasn’t been back since.
“Salt Lake teenager Jimmie L. Boyd, 14, Brigham Young University student Elizabeth Glausi, 19, and Child, 14, were crushed to death when frenzied fans rushed toward the stage during the opening numbers of AC/DC’s concert.
The deaths grabbed national headlines and prompted a ban on festival seating at concerts held at the Salt Palace and Delta Center.
Fans began pushing toward the stage during the opening number of the band’s act. Fans in front of the stage were trampled to the floor and crushed by the press of people. Some were crushed for more than 30 minutes while security guards tried to control the crowd and stop the music.
The band stopped playing for 15 minutes while fans passed injured people overhead to guards and paramedics.”
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